Grid cells in rats deprived of geometric experience during development (v1)

This original data set contains tetrode extracellular electro-physiological data in vivo from rats. Data was collected during free exploration of a familiar “home”- and unfamiliar open square environment. We set out to test whether the late emergence of periodic grid patterns in cells of the superficial medial entorhinal cortex was dependent on internal maturation (i.e., experience independent) or experience with navigation in geometrically salient environments. The rats were randomly distributed in 4 groups; (i) rats raised for months in opaque spheres since birth, (ii) rats raised in enriched environments but moved to opaque spheres for months at adult age, (iii) rats raised for months in opaque cubes since birth, (iv) rats raised in enriched environment for months since birth. This data can be reused to study development of spatial coding over repeated exposures in familiar versus novel environment in small neural populations in the medial entorhinal cortex.